Riding in Cars with Strangers

A reflection on BlaBlaCar, the popular ride-share platform that connects people for cheap & easy carpooling throughout Europe

What is BlaBlaCar?

Shortly after moving to Spain I had a friend invite me to her apartment on the beach for the weekend. She was already there, working remotely and told me to take the train down from Sevilla.

Being a Friday and last minute, all the trains were full.

Crushed to have to pass up on a wonderful weekend with a new friend, I let her know the bad news. She immediately responded, “pero has mirado BlaBlaCar? (but did you check BlaBlaCar?)” Naturally I was confused. What car? She explained it was a website/app where people post rides and you can request to reserve a seat in their car, for whatever fee they decide. Think Uber but longer distances and way less expensive. For example, to go from Sevilla to Cadiz (an hour and a half) is usually around 8 euros per person.

You are probably thinking, why in the heck would I take a ride with a complete stranger, that sounds dangerous. However, the app is set up in a way where both drivers and riders have to have a full profile, photo, bio, etc. They even have reviews. Drivers leave reviews for passengers and passengers leave reviews for drivers. So you can check the person out and vet them prior to deciding to request a ride. And any driver can reject a request if they feel a passenger isn’t a fit.

The American in me still feels like I need to justify and explain this further. I can understand it still sounds a bit odd. But it’s totally normal and commonplace here in Spain. Lots of people use BlaBlaCar. I myself have used it at least 20 times and have never had a bad experience. To the contrary, I’ve even made friends from the rides, or had memorable experiences at least. The best was one time I was riding to Ronda and the driver and I realized we had a friend in common. Nothing like an experience like that to make you feel like a true local!

A Real-Life BlaBlaCar Anecdote

A year into living here I requested a ride with an Italian with good reviews. I needed to go to Cadiz, a beach town close to Sevilla, where a fellow American friend lives. Trains were sold out again, because it was a last minute plan in the midst of peak summer.

When I showed up to the meeting point, I found two handsome young Italians waiting alongside an old vintage yellow, white, and brown RV. Three of us had requested to ride with them so it was five of us total. The three of us passengers hesitantly stepped into the RV as the Italians explained that they were road tripping across Europe, their dad had lent them the RV. They’d been on the road for three months and had three more months to go.

As we settled into the little, worn-out yet still charming, sofas in the back, the two Italians opened the tiny kitchen fridge that was packed with Peronis. They welcomed us to have a beer on the way down (in Spain passengers can drink in cars, which I’ve never actually seen happen, but in this particular case of being on an unexpected summer RV excursion, it felt appropriate).

Each person was from a different country and we bonded telling stories about where we were from, what we were doing heading down to Cadiz, and listening to the Italians’ stories. As we talked, Fabrizio de André’s oh so exotic Italian voice danced out from the old speakers, enveloping us in Italian bliss as we cruised down the sunny Spanish highway.

As I listened to their stories, I felt expanded. These two best friends in their late 20s, just cruising throughout Europe together for fun. They radiated carefree bliss. They were on a budget, and were wisely funding their gas expenses through BlaBlaCar. Meeting new people along the way. An adventure that to me seemed a wonderful dream.

It made me start to wonder just how much I’d been affected by the bubble of prosaic routine in the US, feeling the only path to success was rigidly linear. This was a gentle reminder that there were no straight lines on the path to success. Success became a universe of possibilities. Their energy imbued my world with new, limitless horizons.

Life can be so much more than work, I thought to myself on that trip. A thought I’d had 100 times in my first year living in Spain. A thought I now live in my day to day, thanks to being surrounded by this omnipresent cultural mindset. Living in constant exposure to the mentality really starts to permeate your very being.

When we got to the beach we all ended up getting lunch together. I invited my friend I was meeting to join us, and it turned into a typical Spanish lunch that lasted until dinner. I never saw the Italians again, or anyone else from that RV, but the memory of the joyful, unexpected connections stays with me to this day.

BlaBlaCar + Spain

BlaBlaCar is just another vehicle (pun intended ;)) representing the culture of community here in Spain. The culture that lives in an effervescent ease of always sharing and connecting with anyone and everyone.

And more simply, it’s a practical way to get around the country affordably and conveniently. While Spain’s public transportation is lightyears beyond what I lived in California, a lot of my local Spanish friends believe there is much to be improved. They chalk up the success of BlaBlaCar to the fact that it’s the solution for getting places where public transportation falls short.

Brian Wiesner of Serendipity Lab recently wrote about Social Capital (defined by Robert Putnam), a concept I was deeply fascinated by. Essentially Putnam defines social relationships as being split into three distinct buckets: bonding, bridging, and linking. Bonding being our most meaningful relationships, bridging being our more acquaintance relationships, and linking being relationships between diverse groups.

I absolutely loved this definition. It puts words to something I’ve observed in life here but have never been able to describe so clearly and succinctly. I feel my relationships here hit all 3 buckets. And I would venture to say that a lot of people living here in the city have mirrored experiences.

BlaBlaCar is certainly an example of both bridging and linking. From the linking angle, you’re exposed to a wide range of people, whether way older, way younger, from a different country, etc. From the bridging angle, you experience these lighthearted, ephemeral connections that do touch you despite their brevity.

I’ve come to believe these bridging and linking relationships are just as important as our most meaningful relationships. Both of these buckets were lacking in my life in the US. Now those buckets of social groups here overflow with abundance. The key is to fill all three.

The significance of these fleeting connections consistently interspersed throughout the ever-changing tapestry of each week can’t be understated. The quick “hola qué tal?” and friendly sonrisa I share with our building’s groundskeeper, the local pharmacy owner as I pass by her on the street, and my elderly neighbor on the first floor who I sometimes coincide with in the elevator. It’s an essential ingredient that mixed together with myriad others, results in the invaluable quality of life here that far surpasses what used to be my norm.

Photo by Emil Diallo on Unsplash